#schwi

No Game No Life

1) Headcanon by (Armchair) Diagnosis

You look at a fictional character and notice behaviours that seem to fit the description of autism (e.g. difficulties in social interaction, difficulties in communication, repetitive behaviour, over- or under-sensitivity to sensory input, highly-focused interests, anxiety, meltdowns, shutdowns). Based on these observations, you headcanon the character as autistic.

Example: "Ali, from Boys Beware by Jean Ure, struggles with communication and with making herself understood. She either won't contribute to a conversation, or she'll say something random that has nothing to do with what's come before. She doesn't fit in at school and only has one friend. Ali has highly-focused interests in astronomy and in Star Trek, to the point where her sisters joke that she has a 'one-trek mind'. Unless someone interrupts her, she could talk about her interests for ages. I get massive autistic vibes from Ali!"

2) Headcanon by Self-Recognition

You recognise your own behaviours and personality traits in a fictional character. They're just like you! And you're autistic. So you headcanon the character as autistic too.

Example: "Rapunzel plays with her hair a lot in Tangled. Her model sheets describe her hair as 'almost a pacifier'. She tends to grab her hair at emotionally stressful times. I'm a bit like that with my hair - I stim with it, and it calms me down and makes me feel good. So I like to think that Rapunzel is autistic and that the stuff she does with her hair is stimming or self-soothing."

3) Headcanon by Metaphor

The character and the plot could be read as metaphors for the experience of being autistic, or being disabled in general. So you headcanon the character as autistic.

Example: "Schwi Dola from No Game No Life is a robot who wants to learn as much as she can about the human [heart]. That seems a lot like a special interest to me. Her desire to learn about that one topic causes 'errors' to occur in her programming, so she's disconnected from her cluster. That could be a metaphor for how isolating it can feel to be autistic and not have anyone understand your unique way of seeing the world."

4) Headcanon by Gap-Filling

No-one knows very much about that character. They're a blank slate. You can headcanon anything you want about them. So you headcanon them as autistic.

Example: "Hatsune Miku's personality can take any form; it just depends on what type of song she's singing. So why can't I see her as autistic? All Vocaloid headcanons are valid!"

5) Headcanon by Wish Fulfilment

You have no evidence that they're autistic. You just really, really want them to be autistic because it makes you happy.

Example: "Imagine if Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit turned out to be autistic. Wouldn't that be cool? She's already one of my favourite characters, so I like to think she's autistic. No, I can't give a better justification than that. Just let me have my fun!"

commission for witchmardura of Schwi